The Witch and the Beast looks like it should have been one of the most popular anime of the season.
Reasons why it is so unpopular include the manga being on hiatus and the studio experiencing some issues with the production.
You should give it a try if you like magical settings.
Some fans feel that the Winter 2024 season was somewhat underwhelming. That said, it was anything but that — it had many series that were worth following. Yes, none of them received as much attention as, say, Jujutsu Kaisen, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t good.
One of the biggest hidden gems of the season is The Witch and the Beast (Majo to Yajuu). The series has a seemingly generic but cool premise — a duo of protagonists fighting against witches and other supernatural enemies while following a revenge quest of Guideau, who was cursed by a witch.
Yet somehow this wasn’t enough to even make people check out the series — it seems that no one is talking about it.
It has everything that makes an anime good, so what went wrong?
The action is decent, and the series’ take on witches is not something we see in anime very often. The topics are handled in a very mature way — at first glance, it seems that the anime has to be much more popular than it actually is.
Reasons why it is unpopular
However, there have been many factors that made The Witch and the Beast much less popular than one initially expected it to be.
The source material for the anime is a somewhat obscure manga, which is on hiatus right now — so there wasn’t any boost to the series’ popularity from the manga readers. The manga being on hiatus was likely a reason for why there wasn’t a huge promotional campaign for the anime.
The anime also started airing quite late into the season — January 12 — and at that point, many fans felt they already had enough anime on their plates. Because of that, many fans didn’t even bother to pick it up.
Some of those who did care to pick it up, though, dropped it after the first episode. It was somewhat confusing and introduced many concepts and worldbuilding elements viewers didn’t want to make sense of — even though they became clearer later in the anime.
The popularity of the anime was also hurt by the fact that it is made by a lesser known studio. Yokohama Animation Lab isn’t exactly a studio many fans have heard of, and some of the later episodes of the anime began to show production issues — further hurting the popularity of the anime and alienating the audience.
You should give it a chance
That said, if you want a new take on a magical setting and aren’t afraid to dive headfirst into an anime that will explain its worldbuilding later on, this might be an anime for you. It is very much worth watching, and even though it hasn’t ended yet, fans are eager to see how the events play out.
It should have been more popular.
Summary:
The Witch and the Beast looks like it should have been one of the most popular anime of the season.
Reasons why it is so unpopular include the manga being on hiatus and the studio experiencing some issues with the production.
You should give it a try if you like magical settings.
Some fans feel that the Winter 2024 season was somewhat underwhelming. That said, it was anything but that — it had many series that were worth following. Yes, none of them received as much attention as, say, Jujutsu Kaisen, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t good.
One of the biggest hidden gems of the season is The Witch and the Beast (Majo to Yajuu). The series has a seemingly generic but cool premise — a duo of protagonists fighting against witches and other supernatural enemies while following a revenge quest of Guideau, who was cursed by a witch.
Yet somehow this wasn’t enough to even make people check out the series — it seems that no one is talking about it.
It has everything that makes an anime good, so what went wrong?
The action is decent, and the series’ take on witches is not something we see in anime very often. The topics are handled in a very mature way — at first glance, it seems that the anime has to be much more popular than it actually is.
Reasons why it is unpopular
However, there have been many factors that made The Witch and the Beast much less popular than one initially expected it to be.
The source material for the anime is a somewhat obscure manga, which is on hiatus right now — so there wasn’t any boost to the series’ popularity from the manga readers. The manga being on hiatus was likely a reason for why there wasn’t a huge promotional campaign for the anime.
The anime also started airing quite late into the season — January 12 — and at that point, many fans felt they already had enough anime on their plates. Because of that, many fans didn’t even bother to pick it up.
Some of those who did care to pick it up, though, dropped it after the first episode. It was somewhat confusing and introduced many concepts and worldbuilding elements viewers didn’t want to make sense of — even though they became clearer later in the anime.
The popularity of the anime was also hurt by the fact that it is made by a lesser known studio. Yokohama Animation Lab isn’t exactly a studio many fans have heard of, and some of the later episodes of the anime began to show production issues — further hurting the popularity of the anime and alienating the audience.
You should give it a chance
That said, if you want a new take on a magical setting and aren’t afraid to dive headfirst into an anime that will explain its worldbuilding later on, this might be an anime for you. It is very much worth watching, and even though it hasn’t ended yet, fans are eager to see how the events play out.
